Feminist scholar to speak about Islam and gender

Amina Wadud, a professor and Islamic feminist scholar, will speak about Islam and gender on April 22 as part of the Small-Thomas Lecture series at Cornell College.

Wadud’s speech is titled “Islam and Gender: A New Millennium, a New Paradigm for Reform.”

One of the world’s foremost Islamic feminist scholars, Wadud was appointed professor of religion and philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., in 1992, and retired in 2008 as professor emerita of Islamic studies. In 2009, she served as visiting professor for the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Her book, “Qur’an and Women: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective,” was banned in the United Arab Emirates but is used in Malaysia as a standard text for activists and academics. In 2005, she drew criticism by leading Friday prayer at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, breaking the Muslim tradition of having only male prayer leaders.  In her most recent book, “Inside the Gender Jihad:  Reform in Islam,” published in 2006, she continues her advocacy of feminism and gender equity in Islam.

She will speak at 11 a.m. on April 22 in Hedges Conference Room in The Commons. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The Small-Thomas Lectures on the intersection of faith and social justice began in 2000, and is funded by Richard Small, a past chair of the Cornell Board of Trustees and a 1950 graduate, and his wife, honorary alumna and trustee Norma Thomas Small. Previous speakers  include Sean Farren, a key negotiator in efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland, Edwina Gately, a Catholic laywoman who founded a haven for prostitutes in Chicago, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., and The Rev. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church.